Rolling a Six

What’s better off-road than a four-wheel-drive vehicle? A six-wheel-drive vehicle of course. In fact by TLCB arithmetic it’s a whole two better.

Eurobricks’ KevinMoo also clearly favours the ‘more is more’ approach and has built his latest creation – loosely based on Mercedes-Benz’s nuts 6×6 G-Wagon – accordingly. With twin L motor drive going to all six wheels and all-round multi-link live axle suspension Kevin has constructed quite a capable machine, and – as a by-product of trying to reduce the stress on LEGO’s famously weak U-Joint pieces – a reasonably quick one too, as there’s little gearing-down at work in the drivetrain.

Remote control coupled with reasonable speed does of course mean a few of our Elves have been squished in the making of this blog post, but hey – blogging’s not without the odd sacrifice. It also meant that, once the Elf at the controls was found, fed, and then ejected from the building, we could take a good look at the internal workings of Kevin’s build.

As you can see from the image above, the 6×6 fully suspended drivetrain is a remarkably compact piece of engineering, and unlike the real 6×6 G-Wagon it’s made possible by the unusual step of not constructing a separate chassis, but rather a monocoque or ‘unibody’ whereby the body and chassis are designed as one unit.

In addition to the clever drivetrain Kevin’s build also features LED lights front and rear, Servo steering, and opening doors, hood and tailgate. There’s lots more to see at the Eurobricks forum, plus you watch the 6×6 in action via the video below.